Michael Peterson, left, with assistance from driver Lillie Horton, takes a Metro Mobility bus from his apartment in St. Paul to MOA where he is a bell ringer for the Salvation Army on Friday, December 18, 2015. With the baby boom generation retiring, Metro Mobility has as many riders as they expected to have in 2020. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

Michael Peterson takes a Metro Mobility bus from his apartment in St. Paul to MOA where he is a bell ringer for the Salvation Army on Friday, December 18, 2015. At right is driver Lillie Horton. With the baby boom generation retiring, Metro Mobility has as many riders as they expected to have in 2020. (Pioneer Press: Jean Pieri)

By some standards — in particular, those of AARP — Minnesota is the best place to retire in the country.

Soon we’ll get the chance to put that distinction to the test: The “Roaring Twenties” of the 20th century will become the “Retiring Twenties” of the 21st.

Starting in 2020 and lasting through 2030, for every one person of “working age” added to the Twin Cities metro area population, there will be 21 people added over the age of 65, according to Metropolitan Council data.

That bears repeating: 21 retirees added to the metro area for every incoming person age 25 to 64. For 10 years. This will lead to a staggering demographic shift: One that will nearly double the metro area’s elderly population by 2040, when more than 1 in 5 people will be retired.

The baby boomer retirement wave already officially began four years ago. And it has state and county officials jittery, to say the least.

“The impact on the state budget will be substantial. As more people do not have the resources to pay privately, they will have to rely on public programs,” said Loren Colman, assistant commissioner for older adults for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.Transit services for the elderly have already far surpassed projected ridership, years early. Talk about housing for lower- and even middle-class retirees and you get nothing but dire warnings. Following a longstanding state mandate, the number of Minnesota nursing homes has been dramatically reduced — something state officials still see as a good thing, given their expense and unpopularity.

State efforts are focused on persuading seniors to remain in their homes as long as they can before seeking assisted living. And plan, plan, plan.

Private developers, on the other hand, can’t seem to build fast enough. Retirement communities built for the elderly over the past couple of years have filled quickly — with long wait lists for those that need any kind of subsidy.

And the real boomer wave has yet to even begin.

“It is a tsunami of immense proportions for which we are entirely unprepared as a community,” said Alan Arthur, chief executive of Aeon, a Twin Cities-based nonprofit developer of affordable housing, a large portion of which serve the elderly. “We’re in very, very, very big trouble.”

A POPULATION SHIFT

Is that hyperbole from a developer invested in the issue?

Some might consider that Metropolitan Council forecast — of one working-age person added for every 21 retirees added — conservative. It’s an estimate based, in part, on economic models — the idea that Minnesota’s strong employment situation will attract younger residents — rather than statistics straight from the state demographer.

Just using numbers from the state demographer would lead to an even more drastic estimate, Metropolitan Council officials admit, though it’s yet to be calculated.

Plus, there’s another factor exacerbating the problem.

“States in the Midwest and east tend to lose more people than they gain. And the bulk of people that move are young,” said state demographer Susan Brower.

And when it comes to services for the elderly, “Young people pay for it: That’s why that group becomes such a great concern,” Brower added.

Starting in 2002, Minnesota’s “net domestic migration” — the number of people that move here from other states, minus those that move away — turned negative, and has remained that way since.

On the whole, the state’s population has increased, largely because of “international migration” — people moving here from other countries — though growth still remains lower than it was 10 years ago.

THE WORKFORCE

It has been conventional wisdom, or perhaps simply wishful thinking, that boomers would keep working into their retirement years — or at least longer than previous generations.

A survey of 4,000 Minnesotans over the age of 60 released this month by the Minnesota Board on Aging backed that idea up: The number of people who said they had retired dropped from 82 percent a decade ago, to 77 percent.

But state demographer Brower said the stats from that survey don’t reflect reality, based on her data.

Four years after 2011, when the first boomers reached age 65, “We’re not seeing any change,” Brower said. “It’s just overwhelmingly the same type of labor force participation that we’ve seen before.”

That worries state officials.

“Where we (residents) have not done a good job — and no one has — is preparing financially,” said assistant commissioner Colman. “The nature of aging is changing, and when somebody retires now they easily could have another 30 years ahead of them.”

In 2010, the Department of Human Services surveyed 10,500 baby boomers, asking them questions about how they’d fund their coming retirement.

The report noted some logical disconnects: 37 percent of boomers said they’d live comfortably on their own savings, for instance — but only 20 percent reported having money left over after meeting basic expenses.

When asked how the cost of long-term care would be paid, nearly a third (32 percent, the highest percentage out of all categories) said they did not know, and 18 percent said they would rely on a government program.

Thus, much of the state’s efforts has gone toward helping people plan — and perhaps more important, encouraging them to keep living at home and use less expensive services.

Because with that many people retiring at once, if they decide to move, where will they go?

NURSING HOMES

Decades ago, Minnesota became known for having a lot of nursing home beds. Ever since then, the state saw that as a problem — an emphasis on expensive facilities where elderly people don’t want to go.

A statewide moratorium was placed on building nursing homes, and since 1987, the number of nursing home beds has decreased from nearly 50,000 to just over 30,000 in 2014. By 2030, that number is expected to drop to 22,825 beds.

The report dismissed policy-maker concerns about the baby boomer wave leading to waitlisting at nursing homes, projecting a healthy surplus through the peak 2020 decade.

“As more people have expressed the desire to remain in their homes for as long as possible, it has been confirmed that shifting away from institutional care is the right policy direction,” assistant commissioner Colman said.

It’s true, boomer-based surveys have shown that next to nobody prefers a nursing home, even under the hypothetical situation that they could no longer live independently.

The most recent 2015 survey of 4,000 baby boomers found only 3 percent would choose a nursing home, with most people saying they’d stay in their home with assistive care services — including those provided by friends or family.

While some wonder whether there will be enough home-based services to spread around, the Minnesota Nurses Association noted that Minnesota licensed 6,267 nurses last year, to cover an estimated 1,781 job openings.

“There is no nursing shortage in Minnesota. Not even close,” the association’s nurse policy specialist, Mathew Keller, wrote in a blog post last January expressing frustration at the idea of a shortage.

Of course, that’s only one aspect of home care — and what many see as the most important component is often unrecognized.

The unsung heroes of the home care industry — family and friends, who often don’t officially consider themselves “care providers” — have been the focus of a new collaborative, including such groups as the Wilder Foundation, seeking to give them advice and support, emotionally if not financially.

“I think there will be a question of whether employers accommodate this work force which may be older, or their families who may need flexibility in their job or schedule to care for their relatives,” said Ben Capistrant, a social epidemiologist with the University of Minnesota.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Talk to county and state housing officials about housing for the elderly, and often the conversation turns to “affordable” — subsidized — housing. It’s a matter of mandate: “housing authorities” were created largely to deal with that kind of thing.

And they do have a point: once a working income is gone, a large proportion of seniors will be in a lower income bracket — a much higher proportion than the general population.

Data abounds: studies by the Metropolitan Council, the state, various counties, the Wilder Foundation, all of which were reviewed by the Pioneer Press. Estimates of need run in the tens of thousands, with availability — and future development — in the hundreds, perhaps low thousands.

The consensus is that in the Twin Cities, it’ll be tough for middle-income retirees without savings to find affordable housing if they move. A tight rental market, and in turn steadily increasing rents, has made market-rate housing for most middle-class seniors increasingly out of reach, in the long term.

And when it comes to the lowest rung on the economic ladder, there are some troubling signs.

A study by the Wilder Foundation three years ago found that the elderly are the largest growing homeless population the state (it used to be kids) — a 48 percent increase in homeless aged 55 and above, compared to 2009.

It’s a proportion Wilder expects to increase.

“This truly is a demand issue, with the sheer size of the boomers, and we simply just don’t have the housing supply,” said Barbara Dacy, executive director of the Washington County housing authority and chair of Serving our Seniors, a consortium of housing authorities and private developers worried about the coming boomer wave.

In her own county, Dacy tracked 396 market rate units for seniors built in the last two years. By her estimates, she needs twice as many.

Dennis Patterson, of St. Paul, has been working to get his mother into a market rate place she likes. Two years ago, they tried to get into Presbyterian Homes in Cottage Grove.

“She’s still 190th on the list,” Patterson said.

Instead, they opted for the newly built, yet-unopened St. Therese of Woodbury. The cost: $1,700 a month for a one-bedroom — after an $18,000 deposit.

When hit with the deposit– not unique to St. Therese — Patterson was a bit stunned, noting that the two-bedroom deposits can run much higher.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

WILL THEY STAY AT HOME?

Minnesota Housing Finance Agency officials, on the other hand, are hesitant to just start building.

“We’re trying to get our heads around where, if anywhere, the state should get involved,” said agency commissioner Mary Tingerthal.

On one hand, the agency sees the cost of housing becoming increasingly burdensome — but for all Minnesotans, not just seniors. Developing senior-specific buildings shrinks their pool for low-income families. And agency officials say they’re reluctant to start construction without thinking about how projects will be sustained.

“The number of seniors will double in 25 years — we really can’t build our way out of that with all new units,” said John Patterson, the agency’s director of planning and research.

The state housing agency predicts that most seniors — given ongoing technological advances — will stay in their homes until the age of 85. Which for boomers won’t happen for some time.

The agency, like their state partners at human services, spends some effort on helping people stay put — granting forgivable loans to low-income homeowners. It’s not a ton: In 2014, the program spent $4.7 million on 220 loans. It ran out of funds after about six months last year.

It has also focused on keeping the remaining Section 8 housing intact — since many 30-year contracts are now expiring. Tingerthal said that not one Section 8 contract was allowed to lapse.

Still, others think it’s wisest to make more room for seniors, just in case.

“I think certainly some portion of households do want to stay, and another portion do not. Regardless of what those shares are, we need to be planning for both,” said Libby Starling, manager of regional policy and research for the Metropolitan Council.

And private developers say they’ve seen no lack of demand for seniors wanting to downsize into an apartment. On the contrary — they can’t keep up.

BUILDING DEMAND

“We think the senior market is so deep and so durable, we’re trying to get as many as we can built,” said Ron Mehl, a senior developer with Plymouth-based developer Dominium.

Years ago, Dominium focused on acquiring and rehabbing buildings for the elderly, rather than erecting new ones.

But in recent years that changed: with demand becoming impossible to ignore, and plenty of investors willing to pony up. Plus, municipalities have become noticeably more cooperative.

“We see it and the cities see it; they get the calls,” Mehl said.

Compared with 10 years ago — when there was no new construction for senior-specific projects — Dominium now has nearly 1,000 senior-specific units either under construction, or soon to be constructed in the next 12 months. Current state tax credits allow them to generally get rent down to $950 for a one-bedroom and $1,150 for two.

Their last two projects — The Legends, a 169-unit building in St. Anthony, and The Cavanagh, a 130-unit building in Crystal — filled in a matter of months.

“We normally would think of them filling up within a year, year and a half,” Mehl said.

Jay Jensen, with Minnetonka-based The Waters Senior Living — which owns and manages eight senior campuses in the metro area — noted that all of those campuses were built in the past five years.

As opposed to Dominium, wait lists have varied based on location — though the affordable units are always wait-listed.

It’s the people that need those whom Jensen worries about most.

“The seniors that suffer aren’t going to be visible. Not necessarily homeless, but they’ll be in their apartment watching TV and eating microwave dinners,” Jensen said. “The challenge is that when they need more services, the infrastructure isn’t there. And some of the (county-owned) buildings weren’t designed to receive services — they’re just old apartments, in some cases.”

In 2014, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency received a record $100 million in affordable housing bonding from the Legislature — again, not specifically for seniors. Most of those projects are already 100 percent pre-leased.

Some old sources of funding — federal programs known as “Section 8” and “Section 202” — have largely dried up, leading Dacy and others to attempt to push a bill through the Legislature that would add $40 million in housing bonds specifically for low-income senior developments.

“Some people say if we build a lot of infrastructure, are we overbuilding, because the population that’s older will decline. And the answer is no, it’s not (declining). For the most part, it will stay the same (after 2030),” said state demographer Brower.

Chip Halbach, chief executive officer of the Minnesota Housing Partnership, a non-profit affordable housing advocate, points out that the number of Twin Cities apartments affordable for a low income or minimum wage workers — estimated at $650 a month in 2011, the year of the study — has been cut in half over the past decade, from 144,000 in 2000 to 70,000.

His gut reaction to the boomer situation: “We’re not ready at all. Which puts Minnesota right in the middle of really every other state.”

Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461 or follow him on Twitter @SPnoir.

ONLINE

AARP’s state scorecard

Retiring in Minnesota has benefits.

AARP, the largest advocate for the elderly in the country, ranks the state as the best place to retire in the country.

According to the organization, Minnesota has far and away the most senior housing units per elderly resident in the country: 125 housing units per 1,000 older adults, compared to the national median of 27. The next-highest state is Wisconsin, with 58 units per 1,000 older adults.

In fact, AARP rated Minnesota the top state in the country on its 2014 scorecard of “services and support for older residents” (Kentucky and Alabama scored worst).

It was the only state to rank in the top quartile for all five categories AARP measured, including affordability, choice of setting and provider, quality of life and care, support for family caregivers, and “effective transitions,” meaning the ability to move someone from a nursing home back into the community.

Minnesota scored first in the nation in two of those categories: choice of setting and provider, and quality of life and care.

When asked whether Minnesota’s reputation might lead to additional retirees moving here — and thus exacerbate what will already likely be a strain on resources — Loren Colman, assistant commissioner for older adults for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, said no evidence suggests this.

Still, AARP noted that with all that good news, the cost of long-term support in Minnesota was still unaffordable for middle-income families — nursing homes cost over twice the average household income here.

And in one important area, Minnesota ranked next to last — 49th in the country: The cost to care for somebody privately at home, as a percentage of median household income. Compared with a national average of 84 percent of annual income, the cost in Minnesota was 110 percent.

Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461 or follow him on Twitter @SPnoir.

Some services for the elderly have already registered surprising increases since the first baby boomers hit retirement age.

The Metropolitan Council’s Metro Mobility service — a bus and sedan service for those certified as unable to drive — has grown at a much faster pace than expected in recent years.

Back in 1998, the Metropolitan Council did a study predicting the service would have 1.7 million passengers by 2020.

“Those numbers are no longer holding,” said Andrew Krueger, a senior manager for the service. “As ridership continues to grow, it continues to get more challenging.”

In fact, the Met Council predictions have already been exceeded — the service had 2.1 million passengers over the past year.

Lillie Horton, who’s been driving with Metro Mobility for 13 years, said: “One thing I don’t like about driving is I get to know them (the riders), and they pass away. I lose ’em.”

But Horton still has plenty of regulars. Compared with perhaps a dozen riders a day when she started in 2003, she’s up to about 25 a day now.

The service comes with a cost from state’s general fund — a subsidy of roughly $26 per ride last year, on top of the $3 or $4 charged to passengers. Over the past five years, the budget of the program has grown from $39.7 million to $62.2 million in 2015.

Krueger said the Metropolitan Council does not have cost projections for the height of the boomer retirement, but it’s something it hopes to study.

Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461 or follow him on Twitter @SPnoir.

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